


Happy Birthday, Marco!

by Katiebug445



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Fluff, M/M, cardina deserves your love he's a good boy, i don't give a shit anymore mardina is canon you can all fight me, written for marco's birthday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29235141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katiebug445/pseuds/Katiebug445
Summary: Cardina does his best to make his boyfriend's birthday special. There's just one problem: He has no idea how to bake.
Relationships: marco bodt/cardina baumeister





	Happy Birthday, Marco!

Cardina wanted nothing but for it to be special. 

He and Marco had been together for just a little under a year, and it was the first birthday they were getting to celebrate as a couple. He’d been planning it in secret for months, buying little things here and there when he was able to go shopping on his own, hiding it away in the top of his closet, where he knew Marco never noticed things. He’d even gone so far as to message Marco’s best friend, a man named Jean who had always scared the hell out of him, for help in making the cake. 

Cardina wanted to do it from scratch, to make something entirely homemade for his birthday, but he genuinely had no idea what he was doing, and Jean was a chef, so why not? 

Once Marco left for work that morning, Cardina sprang out of bed and got started as soon as the car pulled away, pulling down all of the decorations and ingredients he’d picked up, and took everything down to the kitchen so he could get started.

He dumped everything out onto the table and began to sort it absentmindedly as he tapped around on his phone for a playlist that Marco had made for him of all of his favorite songs, and once it was playing, he tied his hair back and started ripping open packages. The decorating was one of his favorite parts of this stuff, figuring out the perfect placements for banners and streamers and every other little thing was always so much fun for him, he wished he had the chance to do it more often. 

Once everything was how he wanted it, Cardina went back to the kitchen, bopping along to a cheery song that he knew Marco loved, and hummed along with it as he typed out a message for Jean, telling him he was ready for him to send over the easiest recipe he had on hand. While he waited for him to get back, he rounded up everything that he assumed he would need to make a cake, trying to remember all of the baking things that Marco used when they made box brownies and cookies. 

He kept peeking over at his phone, but nothing had come through yet, and Cardina was starting to get impatient waiting for it. He tried to distract himself by tidying up some little things here and there, but that didn’t take nearly enough time up before he was back at his phone, cursing quietly to himself and wondering if Jean actually knew how to text at all, by the speed it was taking. 

Cardina found himself wandering back upstairs with his phone in hand, deciding to go ahead and get dressed, and before he realized what he was doing, had one of Marco’s shirts pulled on, along with his favorite pair of pants and an old baseball cap that he’d been given by his boyfriend, and pulled his ponytail through the hole in the back. Finally, his phone dinged with a message, and a text long enough that it had to be broken up in three parts came through. Suddenly, he realized why it had taken Jean so long to get back to him: He’d written out a novel! 

He quickly scanned over the recipe, still a bit intimidated despite this being an “easy” cake, and typed out a quick thank you to Jean before heading back downstairs so he could get started looking for the rest of what he needed. Unlike the boxed goodies that they’d made previously, this required a lot more ingredients, several of which they didn’t have. Panicked, Cardina sent another text asking if it would be okay not to use some of the stuff, and Jean explained that it could, thankfully, be substituted by a few things he  _ did  _ have on hand. 

Cardina read over the beginning of the texts from Jean three times, just to make sure he had down everything that he needed, and got started, putting in as much care as he possibly could to every step, and smiled to himself when he was finished mixing in the wet ingredients. It looked good, if he said so himself, and felt a bit of pride in himself for getting that far in without messing it up. 

Next came the dry parts, all of which he had ready in a smaller bowl, which he soon realized was a mistake. Everything went in nice and easy until he got to the flour, which was a lot lighter and dustier than anything else, and he made the mistake of dumping it in all together, which created a giant puff of white, which ended up all over his face, his shirt, and even, to his surprise, in his hair. Coughing, Cardina fanned the flour out of his face, and looked over the next bit of the recipe, which was to put everything in together, and mix it. Easy, he thought. 

Seeing as the wet ingredients had the bigger bowl, he decided to dump the dry into it, but the bowl was heavier than he expected, and, once again, he was covered in an even bigger mess, and the wet bowl teetered dangerously on the edge of the counter with the extra weight and the momentum in which everything was dumped in. 

Cardina yelped, holding the bowl with his hips as he dumped the rest of the stuff in, then hurriedly set the empty one down and moved the full one back to safety. That was entirely too close, he thought, and, because everything was so full, he decided to hand mix it rather than use the machine.

Twenty minutes, a sore arm, and an egg yolk stain on the front of his shirt later, he put the spoon he was using down, and was digging out the other mixer, wondering if it would be okay to use one beater, seeing as the other wasn’t where it needed to be. He decided it would be better than nothing, and plugged it in, at the last second deciding to put it on the lowest speed possible, which turned out to be the right move, seeing as how fast even that spun everything around. 

Somehow, he managed to pull it off, and had a cake mix that looked as perfect as everything he found on the internet. Satisfied, he grabbed one of their cake pans and poured it in, which ended up needing to be split into two with the amount of batter he had left, but he thought that would be fine; that meant more cake for the man he loved more than anything. Cardina quickly scanned over the last bit of Jean’s messages, and decided to set a timer on his phone for when it would be ready, and popped them in the oven once it was ready. 

While everything cooked, he cleaned everything up, himself included. He didn’t want to take off the shirt, seeing as it was comfortable and smelled like Marco, so he just brushed it off the best he could and settled for that being good enough. He did up the dishes, swept the floor, and cleaned off the counters, all while listening to his music, feeling happy and lighter than he had in awhile. He loved the idea of being able to do this for the love of his life, to be able to surprise him with nice things like this, and thought maybe, if this went over well, he could start asking Jean for more advice on how to cook things. 

He hadn’t been keeping track of time, and only realized that something might be wrong when he began to smell something burning, and panicking a bit, checked the timer to realize that he hadn’t actually hit start. Cardina screamed, quickly shutting the oven off and grabbing the nearest cloths he could find to pull the pans out, cussing quietly to himself when the heat from the metal burned through the dishcloths and burned his fingers. He quickly set them on the counter to cool off, and his heart completely sank when he realized that they were all but ruined. The tops of the cakes looked more like charcoal, or the tops of their brownies than they did a lemon cake, and he sighed, his good mood completely destroyed. 

He couldn’t even bring himself to ask Jean for help, he was so humiliated, and just stood there for several moments, looking at the burned mess of a surprise, and tried not to cry. Who was he kidding thinking he could actually pull this off? Cardina looked around at the decorations, and the happiness that they brought him earlier in the day turned to disgust, and suddenly they looked horrible, too close together and junky, and made him feel like he was trying too hard to impress his boyfriend rather than a genuine expression of his love. 

Tears filled Cardina’s eyes, and he had half a mind to tear them all down, but when he got up to do it, a little thought stopped him: how touched Marco would be to see it, even if it was a huge disaster. He took a deep breath and looked around at the decorations one more time before deciding to leave them, wondering to himself how he’d been so lucky as to land someone as forgiving and kind as Marco was. 

The cakes still bothered him, though. A lot. He left them where they were for the time being, and grudgingly decided to go out and just buy a cake for him instead. It felt like cheating, but he wanted to make sure Marco actually had something edible. So, Cardina bought a blank cake and a tube of icing, deciding to at least do the decorating on it himself. 

~

Marco pulled up several hours later, exhausted from a long shift at the restaurant where he and Jean both worked, having worked a double shift to cover for his friend while he spent the day with his new fiance, Armin, and just sat in his car for a moment and tried to relax. He shrugged off his jacket and smock, and decided, just for the night, to leave his work shoes out in his car so he didn’t have to look at them anymore. Barefoot and exhausted, Marco walked up to the house with a paper bag full of food he’d been able to bring home for he and Cardina to share. 

He opened the door, not surprised to find it unlocked already, and stepped inside. The first thing he noticed was the giant banner that said happy birthday written out on the wall behind the couch, and his heart lifted the tiniest bit. He was glad to see that at least someone had remembered his birthday after a long day of being bitched at by angry soccer moms on their lunch breaks, and then he realized that the rest of the room was decorated with streamers and even more banners. 

“Car?” he called, the tiniest hint of a smile lighting up his face as he hung his keys and smock up on the hook by the door. “Did you decorate all of this?” 

Cardina appeared in the doorway, then, and Marco couldn’t help but laugh at him when he saw how much of a mess he looked. His face, despite his best efforts to clean it off, still had flour smudges on it, and he noticed a few white spots in his ponytail that he hadn’t seen that morning, too. His shirt, he realized, was all but ruined, with flour and egg stains covering the front, but he couldn’t bring himself to be too upset with him. 

“Hey,” Cardina replied, hurrying up to him and kissing him softly on the cheek. “Happy birthday.” 

“Thanks.” Marco grinned, holding up the bag of food. “I brought dinner, in case you haven’t eaten yet. I’m sorry I’m home so late.” 

“Don’t be!” Cardina said quickly, taking the bag from him in one hand, and his boyfriend’s hand in the other. “Come with me, we’ll heat this up and celebrate a little while you’re still awake.” 

Marco let himself be led through the house to the kitchen, and felt his heart swelling even more when he realized that the whole house had been decorated for the occasion as streamers brushed against the top of his head. “You were busy today.” He commented happily. 

“I was.” Cardina grinned, hurrying over to the microwave and pulling out the to-go containers to heat up. “Very, very busy, actually, and I think I deserve a kiss or two for my efforts.” He teased, unable to help himself. 

Marco spied the cake sitting on the counter as Cardina spoke, and a huge grin lit up his face at the sight when he read the inscription on it. “I think you’ve earned a bit more than that…” He murmured, popping the lid off the cake and swiping a bit of icing off of the bottom corner, just so he could taste it. “This is good. Where’d you get it from?” 

“The little grocery store down the street, I don’t remember the name. The new one.” Cardina replied, peeking back at him and feeling his mood lift the tiniest bit when he noticed how happy Marco looked over his cake. That was something, at least. “Do you like it?” 

“I do!” Marco said, part of him wanting to be selfish and skip dinner just so he could tear into the cake and taste it. He still couldn’t believe that Cardina had gone through all of that trouble just for him, and it was touching in a way that he couldn’t describe. “Thank you, you have no idea how much I needed this after today.” 

“I think I can guess, based on the look on your face when you were coming up to the house.” Cardina replied, putting the first of the dishes in the microwave before coming back over to sit with him for a moment. “Bad day?” 

“No worse than usual,” Marco shrugged, leaning over and giving Cardina a kiss on the cheek. “Just a really rude party at lunch, and a couple different nasty ones during the dinner rush. But it’s okay.” 

Cardina scowled hearing that, hating that Marco had to deal with that almost every day, and scooted his chair over closer to him so he could touch him, to comfort him as much as he could. “Screw them. How was it aside from that?” 

Marco thought about that for a moment, not wanting to keep complaining about his day, and smiled a little when he realized that something good did happen. “It was worth taking the double shift.” He explained. “I guess Armin asked Jean to marry him tonight.” 

“Really?” Cardina smiled, feeling a small wave of happiness wash over him for their friends, making a note to text them both in the morning to say congratulations, and ran his hand comfortingly over Marco’s back. “Good for them.” 

“Yeah, I was relieved when Jean messaged me. It’s been too long co-” Marco broke off, then, his face scrunching up in confusion when he spotted their two cake pans half hidden behind a loaf of bread. “Car, what’s that?” He asked, pointing. 

Cardina’s heart sank again when he realized that Marco had seen his failure, and with a sad sigh, went over to get the pans. “I tried to make you a cake this morning.” He explained. “But I think I’m just going to have to accept the fact that cooking isn’t what I’m best at.” 

Marco’s heart swelled with even more love for his boyfriend when he heard that, and got up to stand with him, slipping his arms around him from behind and pressing a kiss to the back of his shoulder as he looked over the cakes. “What kind is it? Chocolate? It looks good.” 

Cardina winced a bit when Marco said that, and shrank into himself some. “It… was supposed to be lemon. Your favorite.” 

“Cardina…” Marco murmured, touched that he remembered that little detail, and squeezed him tight around the middle before pulling back and going to grab a knife from the drawer. He grabbed one of the pans and began to cut the cake out, much to Cardina’s dismay. He ignored his pleas for a moment and cut the top layer off, smiling a bit to himself when he saw the cake underneath the burn was still perfectly edible. “Well, look at that!” He smiled, his gaze flickering to the other man. “My boyfriend was sweet enough to bake me a perfectly edible cake for my birthday!” 

Cardina’s lip wobbled a little when he heard that, and met Marco’s eyes for a second before the tears started to form, and he tried desperately to blink them back. He really had no idea how lucky he was to have someone as positive as Marco, and the fact that he’d even thought about trying to salvage the cake was making him more emotional than he could believe. 

“Do you have any frosting for these?” Marco asked, fixing up the other cake as well. 

“No, I… didn’t get that far. I saw they were ruined and completely gave up.” 

Marco thought for a second before pulling out his phone, tapping around on it for a second before he found a good recipe for homemade frosting, and showed it to Cardina. “Want to make some?” He asked, smiling at him encouragingly. 

With a little smile of his own, Cardina nodded, and while Marco got everything together, he went to get his plate out of the microwave so Marco could eat while they got started, and put his own in to get cooking. Once it was in, he grabbed his phone and put on the same playlist as before, hoping to improve both of their moods some while they got ready. 

Marco grabbed himself a fork from the drawer and took a bite of food while he read over the recipe, nodding to himself and thinking that it would be fairly easy for them to do if they did it together. He smiled even more when he realized what song was playing, and shot a loving look towards Cardina, incredibly grateful for him and thinking he was so lucky to have such a thoughtful partner to spend the rest of his life with. “Hey, Car?” He started as the blonde made his way over to him. 

Cardina slipped his arms around Marco’s waist and kissed him softly on the cheek. “What’s up?” 

“I love you.” Marco said honestly, looking over at him again and feeling his heart swelling with affection. “I really, really love you, you know that, right?” 

Hearing those three little words coming from Marco, even though they’d both exchanged them thousands of times over the last year, never, ever failed to send butterflies swarming in Cardina’s stomach, and he squeezed Marco a bit tighter around the middle when he heard them to confirm that he knew. “I love you, too, Mar.” He breathed, kissing him on the side of the head. “I really, really love you, too.” 

“Good. As long as you know.” Marco grinned, leaning into the other man’s embrace for a few seconds before getting started on making up the frosting for them. 

Cardina watched as Marco took control of the kitchen, providing support where he could, and found himself beyond grateful for Marco Bodt, for being such a generous, loving person, who genuinely appreciated a failed effort at making his birthday something special. He smiled, watching as he moved around the kitchen, humming along to the music and smiling hugely whenever their eyes met, and thought that, maybe, it hadn’t been such a bad attempt after all. 


End file.
